[Arm-netbook] Improv And Operation:Marketing for EMOA-*

[Boris Barbour]

On 23/05/14 22:57, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> a batch of 2,500

That's great for once the whole thing has taken off. I know the Eoma has 
been very carefully designed to cheaply mass-produced (and for the 
design to be recycled). But I think it's unrealistic to expect those 
kinds of numbers until a fairly polished product is shipping. We would 
be headed for crowd-sourcing failure. I think we need some way to 
progress and build up momentum that involves much smaller runs and is 
still affordable.

Several years back I designed an analog circuit for work (4 layers, 20 
odd SMT ICs of non-negligible cost, connector). I needed 20 pieces and 
did not feel like building them myself (too many). In the end I sent the 
whole caboodle to a company in England* who took the design, made the 
PCB, sourced the components and assembled the boards. All for 2500 GBP. 
That gives me hope that the expense for much smaller runs would not be 
so great. I think we'd have a lot more chance of finding 20 people who'd 
stump up 100 each to get through one or two revisions.

Joe mentioned 3D printing for any case work. That's a great idea for 
these kinds of smallish prototype runs. It's ideal for iterating a 
design and it is perfectly feasible to order single units or small numbers.

* For what it is worth, these were the people: 
http://www.cogent-technology.co.uk/ . They were great for me, but I 
didn't shop around that much or try to haggle, so it may be possible to 
find even cheaper. But they were perfectly willing to take on such a 
small job.